Kafka and the 10th Anniversary of Guantanamo

The plot of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” is well known: Josef K, an honest bank employee, is detained by the police one day, without being informed of his alleged crime. From then on, he becomes the victim of a cold judicial system that never manages to explain his charges. Josef K, according to the bureaucracy, must know perfectly well what crime he has committed. His protests of innocence of any type of crime weaken rather than help his case. Published in 1925, “The Trial” is a novel which anticipates the horrors of the inquisitional totalitarianism of the 20th century, and of one which was brought about in the 21st century.

Algerian Lakhdar Boumediene spent seven years (2002-2009) locked up in Guantanamo without ever being brought before a court on any charges. Boumediene recalls the Kafkian experience in an article published today in the International Herald Tribune and yesterday in the New York Times (“My Seven-Year Guantánamo Nightmare”). The worst, he says, was that his daughters grew up without being able to see him even once in those seven years, not even able to talk to him on the phone. The few letters he received from the little girls, much fewer than were actually sent, were “so thoroughly and thoughtlessly censored that their messages of love and support were lost.”

In September of 2001, Boumediene was working in Sarajevo as a director of humanitarian aid for orphaned children with the Red Crescent Society (essentially the Red Cross of Muslim countries). After the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he was captured by American authorities and transported to Guantanamo by plane. He was only freed when the Supreme Court of the United States (in “Boumediene vs Bush”) ordered the American government to proceed with formally accusing the detained of some concrete crime and then present relevant evidence. The government did not press any charges, and the Algerian was released. He now lives in France with his family.

Located on an American military base on the island of Cuba, Guantanamo (Prison without judicial regulation? Concentration camp? Extermination camp? Star product of the American Gulag?) is turning 10 this Wednesday, the Jan. 11. There are still 171 men there, despite Obama’s promises to close this universal paradigm of infamy if he made it to the White House.

Barcelona native and New York resident Emma Reverter, licensed in law and journalism, has spent a decade reporting (as much as is possible) on Guantanamo, which she has visited on three occasions. Now Roca Editorial is publishing her book Guantanamo: “Ten Years.” Reverter begins her work dedicating it in rightful homage to some lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights who, as soon as the horror of Guantanamo was established, recalled a basic principle of civilized life: every accused has the right to be defended in a court of law from the concrete accusation or accusations leveled against him or her. Of course, these authentic American lawyers were, and still are, insulted and threatened by fanatical compatriots who label them traitors, accomplices to terrorism, and friends of Osama bin Laden.

Over 800 prisoners have passed through Guantanamo. Some of the 171 who are still there “know that they aren’t going to escape alive” from this black hole, according to Reverter. In fact, the last two who escaped did it in a coffin, one after killing himself.

In 2006, Mat Withecross and Michel Winterbotten directed the British film “The Road to Guantanamo,” which tells the true story of some British Muslims who traveled to Pakistan to attend a wedding and ended up in the hands of the American authorities who invaded and occupied Afghanistan after 9/11. Three of them (the Tipton Three) were brought to Guantanamo, where they were gagged, chained, dressed in solid orange suits, and lived as prisoners there for over two years, subjected to unthinkable humiliation and torture. Finally, they were returned to the United Kingdom, where their liberty was restored without any charges.

Two years later, in 2008, the novel “The Prisoner of Guantanamo” (RBA), written by American journalist and author Dan Fesperman, arrived in Spanish book stores. The limbo dominated by the Torquemada mentality of Bush and his neocons was incorporated into the dark stories.

As far as I know, it hasn’t occurred to anyone to categorize “The Trial” as a thriller. Nevertheless, no work better expresses the anguish of an innocent deprived of his or her liberty by a totally heartless authority and tortured until a confession is exacted by the captors. He or she confesses guilt to something, to whatever they want.